Team Collaboration¶

Notifer's TEAM plan enables multiple users to collaborate on shared notification topics, making it perfect for development teams, DevOps groups, and business departments.

Overview¶

With the TEAM plan, you can:

Create teams with multiple members
Share notification topics across your team
Assign roles with different permission levels
Leverage the team owner's subscription for all team members
Publish collectively using a shared rate limit pool

Cost-Effective Collaboration

Only the team owner needs a TEAM subscription ($24/month base). All team members can use FREE tier accounts and still publish to team topics with the owner's generous rate limits.

Key Concepts¶

Teams¶

A team is a group of users who collaborate on shared notification topics. Each team has:

One owner (requires TEAM subscription)
Multiple members (can have FREE tier accounts)
Shared topics that all members can publish to
Centralized rate limits based on the owner's subscription

Team Topics¶

Team topics are notification channels owned by a team:

Created by team owner or admins
All team members can publish to them
Use the team owner's rate limits and retention
Can be public or private

Roles¶

Teams have three role levels:

Role	Description	Subscription Required
OWNER	Full control over team and billing	TEAM ($24/month + $5/additional user)
ADMIN	Manage members and topics	FREE+ (any tier)
MEMBER	Publish to team topics	FREE+ (any tier)

Creating a Team¶

Prerequisites¶

Active TEAM subscription ($24/month base + $5/additional user)
Verified email address

Steps¶

Navigate to the Teams page in your dashboard
Click "Create Team" button
Enter team details:
Team name: Choose a descriptive name (e.g., "Engineering", "DevOps")
Description: Optional description of the team's purpose
Click "Create"

Your team is now created, and you're automatically set as the OWNER.

Inviting Team Members¶

Who Can Invite¶

Team Owner
Team Admin

Invitation Process¶

Navigate to your team's detail page
Click "Invite Member"
Enter the member's email address
Select their role:
ADMIN: Can manage members and topics
MEMBER: Can only publish to topics
Click "Send Invitation"

Invitation Email¶

The invitee receives an email with:

Team name and who invited them
Role they've been assigned
Invitation link (valid for 7 days)
Instructions to accept

Accepting Invitations¶

If the invitee has an account:

Click the invitation link
Log in to their account
Invitation is automatically accepted
They're redirected to the team page

If the invitee doesn't have an account:

Click the invitation link
See the invitation details
Create a FREE account (no payment required)
Invitation is automatically accepted
They're redirected to the team page

FREE Accounts Welcome

Team members don't need to upgrade from FREE tier. They can publish to team topics using the owner's TEAM tier limits.

Managing Pending Invitations¶

Pending invitations appear in the team members list with a yellow background.

Actions available:

Resend: Send the invitation email again
Cancel: Revoke the invitation

Invitations automatically expire after 7 days.

Adding Members to Multiple Teams¶

Member Billing Policy

Unique member counting: If you own multiple teams and add the same person to more than one team, they count as one member slot in your billing, not multiple.

Example:

You have a TEAM plan with 3 base member slots (included) and create two teams:

Engineering Team: Alice, Bob, Charlie
DevOps Team: Alice, Bob, David

Even though Alice and Bob are in both teams (4 memberships total), they only consume 2 member slots because billing counts unique users.

Total unique members: Alice, Bob, Charlie, David = 4 members

Your billing: - Base plan: 3 members included = $24/mo - Additional member: 1 × $5 = $5/mo - Total: $29/mo ✅

Invitation Process:

When inviting someone who's already in another one of your teams:

The system allows the invitation (not a duplicate)
They receive a new invitation email for the second team
They must accept the invitation to join the second team
No additional billing charge (same person counted once)

This design lets you organize members flexibly across teams without billing penalties.

Team Roles & Permissions¶

OWNER¶

Full control over the team

✅ Can do:

Edit team details (name, description)
Delete the team
Invite and remove all members
Change member roles (including admins)
Create, edit, and delete team topics
Manage topic access tokens
Publish to all team topics

❌ Cannot do:

Leave the team (must delete team or transfer ownership)
Remove themselves as owner

Subscription Required

The team owner must maintain an active TEAM subscription. If downgraded, the team becomes inactive and members cannot publish to team topics.

ADMIN¶

Day-to-day management powers

✅ Can do:

Invite and remove regular members
Change roles for regular members only
Create and edit team topics (cannot delete)
Manage topic access tokens
Publish to all team topics
View all team details

❌ Cannot do:

Edit team settings
Delete the team
Delete team topics
Remove or demote other admins
Remove or demote the owner
Change their own role

No Subscription Required

Admins can use FREE tier accounts. They benefit from the team owner's TEAM tier limits when publishing to team topics.

MEMBER¶

Publishing-focused role

✅ Can do:

Publish to all team topics
View team topics
Subscribe to team topics
Generate personal API keys
Send test notifications

❌ Cannot do:

Create or manage topics
Invite or manage other members
Edit team settings
Manage topic access tokens
Delete anything

Perfect for Developers

Members can use FREE tier accounts and publish unlimited messages to team topics (within the team owner's limits).

Creating Team Topics¶

Who Can Create¶

Team Owner
Team Admin

Steps¶

Click "Create Topic" in the dashboard
Enter topic details:
Topic name: Use a descriptive name (e.g., "deployment-prod")
Access level:
- Public: Anyone can subscribe
- Private: Requires authentication
Discoverable (public only): Show in public topic list
Select your team from the dropdown
Click "Create"

The topic is now created and:

Visible to all team members
Publishable by all team members
Uses the team owner's retention (90 days)
Counted in the team owner's usage

Topic Naming Best Practices¶

Use consistent naming conventions:

✅ Good examples:
deployment-production
deployment-staging
errors-backend
alerts-critical
metrics-cpu

❌ Bad examples:
prod-deploy
staging_deployment
backend_errors
CriticalAlerts
cpu_metrics

Recommended patterns:

{purpose}-{environment}: deployment-prod, deployment-staging
{type}-{component}: errors-backend, errors-frontend
{category}-{level}: alerts-critical, alerts-warning

Publishing to Team Topics¶

All team members (Owner, Admin, Member) can publish to team topics.

Web Interface¶

Navigate to the topic page
Enter your message
Optionally set:
Title: Message headline
Priority: 1 (low) to 5 (urgent)
Tags: Categorization tags
Click "Publish"

HTTP/cURL¶

With Personal API Key (Recommended)¶

curl -d "Deployment completed successfully" \
  -H "X-API-Key: your_personal_api_key" \
  -H "X-Title: Deployment" \
  -H "X-Priority: 3" \
  https://app.notifer.io/deployment-prod

Personal API Keys

All team members (including FREE tier) can generate personal API keys in Settings → API Keys. These are more secure than shared tokens.

With JWT Token¶

curl -d "Deployment completed successfully" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_JWT_TOKEN" \
  -H "X-Title: Deployment" \
  -H "X-Priority: 3" \
  https://app.notifer.io/deployment-prod

With Topic Access Token¶

curl -d "Deployment completed successfully" \
  -H "X-Topic-Token: tk_team_topic_token" \
  -H "X-Title: Deployment" \
  -H "X-Priority: 3" \
  https://app.notifer.io/deployment-prod

Token Security

Topic access tokens are shared among team members and external systems. Use personal API keys when possible for better security and audit trails.

Rate Limits & Usage¶

How Team Rate Limits Work¶

Notifer uses team-aware rate limiting:

For team topics:

Rate limits based on team owner's subscription tier
All team members share the same pool
Usage counted against team owner's account

For personal topics:

Rate limits based on user's own subscription tier
Usage counted against user's own account

Rate Limit Tiers¶

Tier	Per Minute	Per Hour	Per Day
FREE	10	100	1,000
ESSENTIALS	30	300	10,000
TEAM	60	500	100,000
BUSINESS	120	1,000	250,000

Example Scenarios¶

Scenario 1: Member Publishing to Team Topic¶

Team: "Engineering"
Owner: alice@company.com (TEAM tier)
Member: bob@company.com (FREE tier)
Team Topic: "deployment-prod"

When bob publishes to "deployment-prod":
✅ Uses Alice's TEAM limits (60/min, 500/hour, 100k/day)
✅ Does NOT use Bob's FREE limits
✅ Counted in Alice's usage dashboard

Scenario 2: Member Publishing to Personal Topic¶

Member: bob@company.com (FREE tier)
Personal Topic: "bob-personal"

When bob publishes to "bob-personal":
✅ Uses Bob's FREE limits (10/min, 100/hour, 1k/day)
✅ Does NOT affect team limits
✅ Counted in Bob's usage dashboard

Usage Dashboard¶

Team Owner View:

The team owner sees comprehensive usage statistics including:

Total usage from personal + team topics combined
Team member count (unique members vs. limit - same person in multiple teams counts once)
Per-member breakdown - see who publishes the most
Per-topic breakdown - identify high-traffic topics

Access your usage dashboard at Settings → Usage or via API at /api/usage.

Example team owner dashboard:

{
  "usage": {
    "daily_messages": {
      "used": 1234,
      "remaining": 98766,
      "limit": 100000
    },
    "team_breakdown": {
      "teams": [
        {
          "team_name": "Engineering",
          "total_messages_today": 1234,
          "per_member": [
            {
              "email": "alice@team.com",
              "role": "ADMIN",
              "messages_published": 789
            },
            {
              "email": "bob@team.com",
              "role": "MEMBER",
              "messages_published": 345
            }
          ],
          "per_topic": [
            {
              "topic_name": "deployment-prod",
              "messages_today": 456
            },
            {
              "topic_name": "errors-backend",
              "messages_today": 778
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

What you can learn from the breakdown:

Most active members: Identify power users
High-traffic topics: Which topics consume most of your limits
Inactive members: Members with 0 messages (candidates for removal)
Usage patterns: Plan capacity and optimize topic structure

Team Member View:

Shows only personal topic usage
Team topic publishes do not appear in member's usage
Members cannot see team breakdown (owner only)

Rate Limit Errors¶

When limits are exceeded:

Team topic limit:

429 Too Many Requests
Team rate limit exceeded. The team owner's TEAM plan allows
60 messages per minute. Try again in 42 seconds.

Personal topic limit:

429 Too Many Requests
Rate limit exceeded. Your FREE plan allows 10 messages per
minute. Try again in 38 seconds.

Managing Team Members¶

Viewing Members¶

Navigate to your team page to see:

Active members with their roles
Pending invitations (yellow background)
Member join dates

Changing Roles¶

Who can change roles:

Owner: Can change any member's role
Admin: Can only change regular members' roles (not other admins)

Steps:

Find the member in the team members list
Click their current role badge
Select new role from dropdown
Confirm the change

Removing Members¶

Who can remove:

Owner: Can remove anyone except themselves
Admin: Can remove regular members only

Steps:

Find the member in the team members list
Click the three-dot menu (⋮)
Select "Remove from team"
Confirm the removal

Immediate Effect

Removed members lose access to team topics immediately. They cannot publish or subscribe to team topics anymore.

Topic Access Tokens¶

What Are They?¶

Topic access tokens are shared authentication tokens that allow:

External systems (CI/CD, monitoring) to publish
Shared services to send notifications
API-only publishing without user accounts

Who Can Manage¶

Team Owner
Team Admin

Creating Tokens¶

Navigate to a team topic
Click "Manage Access Tokens"
Click "Create Token"
Set permissions:
Read: Can subscribe and read messages
Write: Can publish messages
Read+Write: Both permissions
Copy the token (shown only once)

Token Security

Topic access tokens are shown only once during creation. Store them securely (e.g., GitHub Secrets, environment variables).

Using Tokens¶

# In CI/CD pipeline
curl -d "Build #$BUILD_NUMBER deployed" \
  -H "X-Topic-Token: tk_your_token_here" \
  -H "X-Title: CI/CD" \
  https://app.notifer.io/deployment-prod

Revoking Tokens¶

Navigate to "Manage Access Tokens"
Find the token to revoke
Click "Revoke"
Confirm

The token is immediately invalidated.

Personal API Keys vs Topic Tokens¶

Personal API Keys¶

Recommended for:

Individual developers
Local development
Personal scripts and automation

Advantages:

Tied to user account (audit trail)
Access to all topics user can publish to
Can be rotated without affecting team
More secure (not shared)

How to create:

Settings → API Keys → Generate New Key

Topic Access Tokens¶

Recommended for:

CI/CD pipelines
Shared monitoring tools
External services
Team-wide automation

Advantages:

Not tied to individual users
Can be shared safely within team
Topic-specific permissions
Managed by owner/admin

How to create:

Topic page → Manage Access Tokens → Create Token

Best Practice

Use personal API keys when possible for better security and accountability. Use topic access tokens only for truly shared services.

Team Settings¶

Editing Team Details¶

Who can edit: Owner only

Steps:

Navigate to team page
Click "Edit Team"
Update:
Team name
Description
Click "Save"

Deleting a Team¶

Who can delete: Owner only

Permanent Action

Deleting a team is permanent and cannot be undone.

What gets deleted:

Team and all team topics
All messages in team topics
Team member associations
Topic access tokens

What is NOT deleted:

Team member accounts
Member's personal topics
Member's subscriptions

Steps:

Navigate to team page
Click "Delete Team"
Type the team name to confirm
Click "Delete Permanently"

Monitoring Team Usage¶

Accessing Usage Statistics¶

Team owners can monitor detailed usage statistics to optimize their team's performance and identify issues.

Access methods:

Web Dashboard: Settings → Usage
API Endpoint: GET /api/usage (requires authentication)

Understanding the Breakdown¶

Per-Member Statistics¶

See exactly how many messages each team member has published today:

Use cases:

Identify power users: Members publishing the most messages
Spot inactive members: Members with 0 messages over time
Balance workload: Distribute publishing across team members
Troubleshooting: If limits are hit, see who's publishing the most

Example:

alice@team.com (ADMIN): 789 messages
bob@team.com (MEMBER): 345 messages
charlie@team.com (MEMBER): 0 messages  ← Inactive?

Actions you can take:

Remove inactive members to free up team slots
Contact high-volume publishers to optimize their integrations
Upgrade to BUSINESS tier if consistently hitting limits

Per-Topic Statistics¶

See which topics generate the most traffic:

Use cases:

Optimize high-traffic topics: Reduce noisy logs or batch messages
Identify unused topics: Topics with 0 messages (candidates for deletion)
Capacity planning: Know which topics to optimize if approaching limits
Topic organization: Restructure topics based on actual usage

Example:

errors-backend: 778 messages   ← High traffic - optimize?
deployment-prod: 456 messages
metrics-cpu: 0 messages        ← Unused - delete?

Actions you can take:

Filter verbose topics at the source
Archive or delete unused topics
Split high-traffic topics into sub-topics
Batch messages when possible

Daily Monitoring Workflow¶

Recommended for team owners:

Weekly check: Review usage dashboard every Monday
Look for anomalies:
Sudden spikes in specific topics
Members with unexpected 0 messages
Topics consuming >30% of daily limit
Take action:
Contact members about unusual patterns
Optimize high-traffic topics
Remove inactive members

API Access for Automation¶

Integrate usage monitoring into your ops workflow:

# Get usage stats
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN" \
  https://app.notifer.io/api/usage

# Parse with jq
curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN" \
  https://app.notifer.io/api/usage | \
  jq '.usage.team_breakdown.teams[0].per_topic[] |
      select(.messages_today > 1000)'

Alerting example:

#!/bin/bash
# Alert if any topic exceeds 10k messages/day

USAGE=$(curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" \
  https://app.notifer.io/api/usage)

HIGH_TRAFFIC=$(echo $USAGE | jq -r \
  '.usage.team_breakdown.teams[0].per_topic[] |
   select(.messages_today > 10000) | .topic_name')

if [ -n "$HIGH_TRAFFIC" ]; then
  echo "High traffic topics: $HIGH_TRAFFIC"
  # Send alert via email/Slack/etc
fi

Best Practices¶

Team Organization¶

Define clear roles
Use Owner for billing and critical decisions
Use Admins for day-to-day management (1-2 admins recommended)
Use Members for developers who only need to publish
Regular audits
Review team members quarterly
Remove inactive members
Cancel orphaned invitations
Naming conventions
Use consistent topic naming across the team
Document naming patterns in team wiki/docs
Use prefixes for environments (prod-, staging-, dev-)

Security¶

Rotate access tokens regularly
Every 90 days minimum
After team member departure
After suspected compromise
Use appropriate token types
Personal API keys for individuals
Topic access tokens for shared systems
Minimum required permissions
Private topics for sensitive data
Error logs with stack traces
Deployment notifications with server details
Customer-specific alerts

Rate Limit Management¶

Monitor usage
Check dashboard weekly
Set up alerts at 80% threshold
Plan upgrades before hitting limits
Optimize high-volume topics
Batch messages when possible
Use appropriate priority levels
Filter noisy logs before publishing
Separate concerns
Different topics for different environments
Separate debug logs from critical alerts
Use tags for categorization

Common Scenarios¶

Setting Up a Development Team¶

Goal: Create a team for 5 developers to share deployment notifications

Steps:

Owner (alice@company.com) subscribes to TEAM plan ($29/month)
Alice creates team "Engineering"
Alice invites 4 developers as Members (all can use FREE tier)
Alice creates topics:
deployment-production (private)
deployment-staging (private)
errors-backend (private)
alerts-critical (public)
All developers can now publish to these topics using Alice's TEAM tier limits

Result:

✅ One subscription covers entire team
✅ 100,000 messages/day shared across team
✅ 90-day message retention
✅ All developers can publish freely

CI/CD Integration¶

Goal: GitHub Actions publishes deployment notifications

Steps:

Admin creates topic access token for deployment-prod
Token stored in GitHub Secrets as NOTIFER_TOKEN

GitHub Actions workflow:

- name: Notify deployment
  run: |
    curl -d "Deployed to production" \
      -H "X-Topic-Token: ${{ secrets.NOTIFER_TOKEN }}" \
      https://app.notifer.io/deployment-prod

Result:

✅ Automated deployment notifications
✅ No user credentials in pipeline
✅ Token can be rotated by any admin

Troubleshooting¶

Cannot Create Team¶

Error: "Upgrade to TEAM plan required"

Solution:

Go to Settings → Subscription
Click "Upgrade to TEAM"
Complete payment
Retry team creation

Invitation Not Received¶

Possible causes:

Email in spam folder
Typo in email address
Email delivery delay

Solutions:

Check spam/junk folder
Resend invitation from team page
Cancel and create new invitation with correct email

Member Cannot Publish¶

Possible causes:

Team owner's rate limits exhausted
Team owner downgraded subscription
Topic is personal, not team topic

Debugging:

Check topic type:
Navigate to topic page
Look for "Team: [name]" badge
Check team owner's usage:
Owner should check dashboard
Look for daily/hourly limit warnings
Check team status:
Verify owner has active TEAM subscription
Check team is not marked inactive

Rate Limits Too Low¶

Scenario: Team frequently hits 100k/day limit

Solutions:

Immediate:
Reduce polling frequency
Filter low-priority messages
Batch when possible
Long-term:
Upgrade to BUSINESS tier (250k/day)
Optimize notification triggers
Review topic architecture

FAQ¶

Do all team members need TEAM subscriptions?

No! Only the team owner needs a TEAM subscription ($29/month). All other members can use FREE tier accounts and still publish to team topics with the owner's TEAM tier limits.

What happens if the owner downgrades?

The team becomes inactive. Team topics remain but members cannot publish to them. The team can be reactivated by upgrading back to TEAM tier.

Can members create topics?

No. Only the team owner and admins can create team topics. Regular members can only publish to existing topics.

How do personal vs team topics differ?

Team topics use the owner's rate limits and retention. Personal topics use the user's own tier limits. Members benefit from owner's TEAM tier only for team topics.

Can I transfer team ownership?

Currently, ownership transfer is not available through the UI. Contact support@notifer.io for assistance with ownership transfers.

What's the difference between Admins and Members?

Admins can manage team members, create/edit topics, and manage access tokens. Members can only publish to topics - perfect for developers who don't need management access.

How many teams can I create?

There's no hard limit on teams, but you need a TEAM subscription for each team you own. You can be a member of unlimited teams without any subscription.

Can I see which team member published a message?

If members use personal API keys, yes - the message metadata includes the publisher. With topic access tokens, no - these are shared and don't track individual publishers.

Next Steps¶

Creating Topics - Learn about topic creation
API Keys - Generate personal API keys
Topic Access Tokens - Manage shared tokens
User Settings - Configure your account

Need Help?

Check FAQ for common questions
See Troubleshooting for problem solving
Contact support: support@notifer.io